This was a straight-up awful performance team-round by the Vancouver Canucks. The team didn't get the saves it needed from Roberto Luongo, the defence left a lot of gaps open, and the forwards simply didn't do enough to pressure the Dallas net. Despite two scoring chances right off the hop, including a penalty shot and the first goal from Chris Higgins, the Canucks let themselves slowly get beat up mathematically in this one.

On the plus side, my endorsement of Steve Ott at the trading deadline was vindicated. This man was a horse tonight. Not so much Seabiscuit, but more like Hidalgo. Analysis, scoring chances, Statistical Stars and Goats and more after the jump.

Every now and then at Canucks Army, we get big heads. It started when Alain Vigneault began to use Alex Edler more regularly as one of his first two shooters in the shootout, much like I suggested in this post last month. 'Maybe,' we thought, 'one of hockey's smartest organizations every now and then uses data provided for free by a few dapper kids running a website,' which doesn't seem too ridiculous to me, especially with our vast experience working in the hockey industry.

In the games only bright spot: Zack Kassian didn't look out of place on the 2nd line.

Well...

Roberto Luongo had an awful start to this one, not bailing out the defense that had a shaky start as well, allowing five scoring chances in a little over five minutes. Ville Leino came out of the game swinging and potted a pair in the first four minutes and Brad Boyes got the clincher, a goal that wasn't counted initially.

David Booth scored a pair and Zack Kassian scored one against his former team to make the score close late, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as they say. Canucks drop the second game on this extended home stand.

The recap tonight won't be too long, but we'll still have the Canucks Army staples: Scoring Chances, the Statistical Three Stars, and, appropriately, the Statistical Three Goats.

Friday night, Grabner scored his 20th and 21st goals of the season in New York’s 9-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. By the way, that’s one more goal than 2009 No. 1 overall pick John Tavares has with the Islanders this season.

Grabner is on pace for 30 goals and was one of the rookies selected to play in last month’s all-star weekend festivities, where he won the fastest skater competition.

Think Gillis and Tallon wouldn’t both like a mulligan on him?

Looking at this in retrospect, you can see why I'm not getting too beat up over the fact that the Vancouver Canucks also dealt Cody Hodgson while he was going through a similar offensive stretch to Michael Grabner in New York one year ago.

After two disappointing losses in extra time in Dallas and Phoenix, respectively, the Vancouver Canucks returned home on Thursday to show off new acquisitions in front of their home fans for the first time. Zack Kassian, Marc-André Gragnani and Samuel Pahlsson all made their debuts in the blue sweater against the St. Louis Blues, having strong games for the most part.

But there wasn't a lot going on in this one. As expected, there was very little space on the ice, as what tends to happen when you have Ken Hitchcock coaching against a coach who has two of the top defensive centres in the game to his credit. Alex Burrows scored the game's first goal midway through the third period off a lucky bounce and Chris Higgins sealed it with a late empty-net effort, while Roberto Luongo held steady for the 29-save shutout.

For a detailed recap, scoring chance numbers for both teams, and the Statistical Three Stars and Goats, follow us after the jump…